Conventional solutions for accessing deduplication file system metadata suffer from high latency problems, particularly if the deduplication is conducted inline or in an input/output (I/O) path. Latency in deduplication file systems can occur due to the necessity for disk-based access of deduplication file system metadata due to such metadata being stored on disk drives (“disk”) or other non-volatile or primary storage (i.e., on disk).
Storing deduplication metadata on disk involves bundling metadata blocks in the same transaction as associated data blocks. If there is any partial read of a metadata block that is not in Random Access Memory (RAM), the metadata must be read from the disk. Conventional deduplication solutions require storing deduplication metadata on disk, and accessing the disk or other non-volatile storage to obtain the deduplication metadata, which results in high latency.
Thus, what is needed is a solution for accessing deduplication file system metadata without the limitations of conventional techniques.
Although the above-described drawings depict various examples of the invention, the invention is not limited by the depicted examples. It is to be understood that, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Also, it is understood that the drawings are not necessarily to scale.